


Five Lines That Never Received The McCoy Seal of Approval (and one that made him famous)

by stepstostars



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, Team Little Black Dress, Trekstock Prompt 1: Words to Live By
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepstostars/pseuds/stepstostars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Leonard does not approve of any of his crew's (now popularized) catchphrases and lines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Lines That Never Received The McCoy Seal of Approval (and one that made him famous)

**Author's Note:**

> I tried narrowing down quotes, and still ended up with too many. So I tried stuffing as many as I could in, and this is the result, ha.
> 
> I also just realized how little catchphrase material they give Uhura, which kind of bombs. And no, some of these aren't the most famous, but Spock would've just hogged all the spotlight otherwise.

**1.**

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”

Len slams a hand against Chekov’s flight console, causing the navigator to startle slightly. “Shut up, Spock, we’re saving you, you masochistic, suicidal asshole.”

“Why thank you, _Captain_ McCoy,” Spock says, tone dry and disbelieving. “However the correct course of action is for the Enterprise to immediately vacate the area. It is not logical to risk more lives than necessary on this mission.”

“You can take your ‘correct course’ and shove it up your ass,” Len snarls. “I will personally stand next to the transporter to drag your whiny ass to sickbay once you’re back on here safe and sound, you hear me? We still have a debate from this morning to resolve.”

There’s a pause that the bridge crew takes to exchange bewildered looks before Spock’s voice comes back in, tinged with amusement. “Affirmative, Doctor.”

“Damn right.” Len says, before he seems to realize where exactly this conversation is taking place. He looks up sheepishly at Jim. “Er, all on you now, Jim.”

“Right, we’ve got your coordinates on lock, Spock.” Jim smiles crookedly, mouth curling suspiciously close to laughter. “Punch it, Sulu.”

 

**2.**

“I like this ship.” Scotty pats the observation deck bench fondly, slumping against it all the while. “It’s exciting.”

“If flying through darkness and chaos in a tin death trap is your version of exciting,” Len mutters, eyeing the stars up above with disdain. “How’d you wangle me into this again?”

“The first bottle of moonshine,” Scotty announces, dramatically lifting up a glass. “And the promise of some good whisky, now that we’ve got something decent to work with.”

“Right.” Len raises his own glass, laughing as he clinks it against Scotty’s. Maybe he’s drunk a bit more than he thought, but it’s been a long time since he’s felt alcohol’s distinctive burn. “To fine drinks.”

“To fine drinks,” Scotty repeats, downing his tumbler in one go before bursting out laughing himself. “We should do this more often, Doc.”

The moonshine against his throat is rough and he just barely restrains himself from coughing the whole lot out, but he still fills both glasses and bumps shoulders with Scotty. “Amen to that.”

 

**3.**

“Scotch was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad.”

Len blinks, staring at Chekov with one eyebrow raised. “And so was Alice in Wonderland, right.”

“No, just the Cheshire cat.” Chekov shrugs. “A common misconception, though.”

“Wait.” Len shakes his head. “You’re seriously trying to tell me that _Scotch_ whisky originated from Russia, not Scotland.”

Chekov smiles brightly. “Yes, exactly.”

Len just purses his lips and continues to stare. “Really.”

“Yes! And karate was originally made in Russia, under a different name, of course, before being stolen by the Japanese.”

It’s at this time Sulu decides to join in, heaving a tired sigh and dragging Chekov away by his arm. “Sorry, sorry, he sometimes gets like this.”

Chekov frowns, fighting against Sulu’s grip in vain. “You always do this,” he protests, still squirming. “I’m just correcting them!”

 

**4.**

“Fascinat—”

“No,” Len interrupts.

Spock raises an eyebrow. “That’s illog—”

“Nope.”

“A conversation requires both parties to contribute,” Spock says irately, fast enough that Len doesn’t try to interrupt this time.

“Maybe if you used more than two adjectives to describe everything, I’d think your input was useful,” Len retorts.

Spock blinks, his eyebrow rising once more. “Doctor, you know very well that my vocabulary is not limited to two words; they are simply the most precise words to describe my thoughts.”

Len rolls his eyes. “Your range of emotion _would_ be described in two words.”

Spock shrugs. “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

 

**5.**

“Space, the final frontier.”

Len snorts. “Yeah, of hell.”

“Are you ever going to let me finish, or is it impossible for you to interrupt me every other word?” He can practically taste Jim’s frustration from his chair, and Len can’t help but smirk a little, though he doesn’t look up. He has an intense game of boggle going on against Spock right now, and dammit if he’s going to lose against that computer.

“I’ll stop when you stop lying through your teeth.” Len shrugs. “It was your choice to rehearse in the hospital.”

“ _My choice?_ ” Jim splutters. “And who explicitly told me I couldn’t leave my bed under threat of death?”

Len takes that chance to look up, straight into Jim’s signature annoyed glare: the stink-eye. “Well I wasn’t the one who forced his best friend to use some harebrained scheme to save him because he was an idiot with a martyr complex and irradiated himself to death, now am I?”

Jim opens his mouth as if to protest before shutting it with a sigh. “You’re never going to let me live that one down, are you?”

Len shrugs again, turning back to his padd. “Not while I’m still alive and able to talk.”

Jim sighs noisily, and Len hears the characteristic sounds of shifting and fidgeting to get comfortable in a hospital’s rock-hard beds, waiting for it to stop before he settles back into his chair and unpauses his game.

There’s a beautiful moment of silence before Jim tries again: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”

“Let’s not split our infinitives now,” Len says absently, continuing to swipe his finger along the screen.

“Dammit, Bones, will you let me finish anything?”

 

**1.**

“Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor, not—”

“An awesome friend?” Jim says, mimicking Len’s tone and pulling at his sleeve like a five-year-old. “Not a cranky stick in the mud?”

“A voyeur,” Len completes, slapping Jim’s hand away from his arm.

Jim rolls his eyes. “Oh liven up, Bones, it’s just one night.”

“I’m not going to stand around in some shady bar in fuck knows where while you go make eyes at anything that moves.”

Jim frowns. “I resent that. I would not have sex with a plant.”

Len rolls his eyes. “Sentient beings, then. Such standards you have.”

“It’s called being a good wingman, Bones.” Jim pulls again, back to whining. “C’mon, just tonight, you need to have some fun, too, admit it.”

Len finally relents to being dragged down planetside, and, just as predicted, Jim does start making eyes at everyone. He ends up at the bar nursing a tumbler of bourbon while Spock sits next to him sipping water.

“I’m going to kill him,” Len says, knocking back the whiskey while watching Jim prance around. “It’d be easy. ‘He’s dead, Spock. You’re the captain now.’ I’d report it to you and everything.”

Spock simply shrugs. “Sometimes wanting is better than having, Doctor.”


End file.
